


Leftovers

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Dinner, Feelings, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mental Health Issues, Secrets, blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to past suicidal ideation, s04 e03 Lazaretto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: Joan is gone. Win could use some taking care of. Morse tries to help.Post Lazaretto.





	Leftovers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hekate1308](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/gifts).



> Wrote this all at once after finishing the episode, then kept picking at it. I think it's finally ready to post.
> 
> Also, hello new fandom! Thank you hekate1308 for inspiring me to watch Endeavour and then screaming with me all the way through. <3

He hasn’t been able to get much out of Thursday, but if Win isn’t making sandwiches, something’s wrong. So, with the DI working late tying up loose ends in Bright’s office, Morse stops by her house to knock on the door.

She’s awake, her eyes glassy like she’s forgotten what sleep is. She blinks at him in surprise and confusion and ushers him inside. The house is cold, and it doesn’t smell like anything’s been cooking. Morse shivers his way over the doorstep.

“Morse, what’s wrong?” she asks, ready to fuss over him at a moment’s notice, but that’s not what he’s here for. Not today.

“Nothing, nothing, I, uh.” He’s not sure how to go about this, and finds himself parroting her own words back at her, wincing as he hears them. “You’re looking a little tired. Could probably use some feeding up yourself, couldn’t you?” Perhaps he should have just gone home, not meddled in affairs he was so unsuited for, but concern and guilt tug at him and he resolves to press forward.

“What?”

“Let me fix something,” Morse says, though his repertoire is admittedly limited. It’s a relief when Win answers that there’s leftover chicken that just needs heating, if he wants to do that. He finds it and she lets him prepare it, an undeniable sign of her state, though she won’t sit in the living room and rest while he works. Instead she stands in the doorway, watching him with vacant eyes. He just hopes he doesn’t break anything.

“Did Fred put you up to this?” she asks. “I know he’s doing his best, but he shouldn’t have—”

“No,” Morse says quickly. “He said you miss Joan is all. I, ah, I guessed things might be more serious than he let on.” She seems so much smaller than he remembers, washed out almost.

She leans against the doorframe and doesn’t try to deny it. “Guessed?”

“Inferred. Ham and tomato. That was today’s sandwich, but it never got made. I’m not—” he holds up a hand to stop her interrupting, “I’m not trying to fault you. I just noticed.”

Win sighs. She wrings her hands. “I suppose I may have forgotten, once or twice. My mind’s not been right, worrying about her.”

Morse nods, quick and sharp. “Well that’s understandable.” His attempt at a reassuring smile comes out more like a grimace. He’s making a complete mess of this; he’ll probably get kicked out of the house. But she doesn’t question what he says, or scoff, or brush it aside. She just nods.

They’re silent as Morse finishes with the chicken, and say little as they take it into the front of the house. Win leads them to the sitting room and takes a seat on the couch, and he’s hardly surprised. The formal angle of the dining room chairs, the stray mail and used teacups on the table, all suggest the dining room is hardly in use. Morse had eaten some of his best meals there, surrounded by the cheerful chaos of the Thursday family. It’s painful just to look at, and he’d be surprised if Win didn’t want to avoid it.

Win offers him a drink, and he accepts, then pours her one too. He’s never seen her drink before, but she takes it and sips at it slowly.

“How’s Mr. Bright?” she asks, and he tells her, in no great detail, that he’s healing up well, and that they’ve taken care of the person responsible for so many of the suspicious deaths.

“A few weeks, maybe, and he’ll be back at his desk again,” he concludes.

“Fred will be glad of that,” she says, and they share a smile. DI Thursday is unsuited to desk work; at least that’s what his grumbling would suggest. Still, he’s putting on an admirable show of it. It’s almost amusing. That is, until Morse starts thinking about what he _is_ suited for, and unkindly recalls his violence with criminals, his near murder of one. He shakes his head. That doesn’t matter now. Thursday is a good man.

“I met someone at the hospital,” he says, surprising himself. “The wife of a patient who died. I knew her, Oxford days.” Caroline’s face, hard and disapproving comes to mind. Maybe she blames him for her husband’s death; will claim that a competent police officer would have solved the case in time to save him. Maybe one would have.

“Another student?” Win asks.

“The mother of one.” He’s not sure if this is a subject he should be avoiding; would just the mention of motherhood be too much? But he says it anyway, voice thick, chasing the last word with a drink. “I used to be engaged to her daughter.”

Win doesn’t ask. She rests a hand on one of Morse’s and squeezes. He almost laughs. Here she is, comforting him when it was supposed to be the other way around.

“She left me,” he says. “Gave back the ring, walked away. I—” he takes a breath. It’s Win. If anyone deserves the truth it has to be her. “I blamed myself. Still do, really. I thought, at the time, I was giving her everything I could of myself. So when she left, I knew. There was something wrong with me; I wasn’t enough to keep her.” He pours himself another glass and downs it quickly.

“I can’t see that being true, dear,” Win says in his silence. Her voice shakes. “You’re a good boy. Sometimes things just don’t work out, that’s all.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.” He offers her a tight smile. “Some days I almost believe it.” Another drink for another admission. If the alcohol is softening the raw edges of his head, it’s not working fast enough.

“That’s why I dropped out of Oxford. I couldn’t bring myself to go out. I cried, slept, didn’t sleep. I had fits almost every day where it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Took me months to pick up a book of poetry again.” He closes his eyes and he’s back in that room, shades drawn, door locked, knowing she was right to leave him if he couldn’t even work up the strength to step outside, thinking it would be better if— “That’s what I need to tell you, Mrs. Thursday. I don’t know what you’re going through. I can’t know. But I’ve probably been near there. Might’ve been through parts of it even.”

Win squeezes his hand tighter. She’s actually crying now, quiet tears slipping onto her cheeks. “How did you make it out?” she asks, barely a whisper.

A shrug. “Am I out?”

She nods, maybe with too much understanding. Maybe this isn’t the first time she’s been in such a state, maybe— but he stops. It’s not his place to speculate.

“Opera,” he says, then. “Listening to opera made me want to keep living.”

She nods slowly. “I haven’t listened to much of it, myself. But I’m glad.”

He decides then and there that he’s going to bring her one of his records tomorrow. Something sad, probably. Something that will reach her. As they talk he mentally sorts through his collection.

“Are you,” she hesitates. “Are you ashamed of it?” She’s not talking about opera.

He lets out a long breath before answering as honestly as he can. “People say all sorts of things. The ones I trust tell me I shouldn’t be.”

She chuckles and leans her head on his shoulder. He lets her. “But you are.”

His silence is answer enough.

“At first I thought, well, I don’t want to leave in case she comes back,” Win murmurs. “But I think it’s more than that now. Come over queer at the thought of it.”

“If you ever need someone,” Morse says. “A ride, I mean.” Or just the company, to make things a little more bearable.

They sit, quiet. She holds his arm.

“You’d better eat your food,” he says at length. “It’ll get cold.”

She smiles and lets him go with one final pat on the shoulder, and Morse watches as she cuts into the meat. He’s not usually the one offering food, offering comfort. Tonight, he supposes, he’s just echoing Win back at herself. Surely there’s some good in that.

“What’s she like?” Win asks, several bites in.

“Who?”

“The girl’s mum.”

Caroline. How to say it. “She’s hard,” he settles on. “She cares terribly about her daughter.” _Susan._ “She always found me something of a disappointment.”

“No,” Win breathes, and he only nods instead of going into how thoroughly disappointed Caroline was, and how she had every right to be.

She was supposed to have been his mother-in-law, but she’d never felt anything like a mum. Not the way Win does. He swallows down the thought with a hasty bite of chicken. “She was doing what she thought was right.”

“It wasn’t, though, was it?”

A shrug. A hand on his back. He’s seen worse. That woman on the morality campaign for one, and her terrified daughter: Bettina. Those girls that joined the Wildwood caravan, one who became a murderer. Everyone thinks they’re doing right, and hurt people who don’t deserve it. He surprises himself by answering, “no. I don’t think it was.”

“And her daughter?”

“Married. Doing well, I think. I didn’t see her.”

She nods. Takes another bite of chicken. Swallows. “Fred says I shouldn’t blame myself. For her leaving.”

She shouldn’t, but Morse knows better than to say it. Instead he offers “then blame me. I’m at much at fault as either of you. I couldn’t keep her safe, in the bank. I didn’t stop her, that morning.” He hasn’t told anyone where she is.

Joan had been waiting. Waiting for him to make a move, to give her something to stay for. He hadn’t even known until the day she left that he was capable of making that move, not on her. Now he can think of nothing else. _Absence makes._

But here he is again, slipping into self-loathing when he’s supposed to be offering comfort. He didn’t hear her deny it, but he’s known her long enough. The thought must be there. “If I’m not to blame, you’re not to blame,” he offers.

“Or maybe we both are,” Win says softly. It hurts, like a stab to the chest, because she’s right. Of course she’s right.

“That still means it’s not all on you, though.”

She laughs at this, quiet and wistful, because he’s right. Miraculously, he’s right. He chuckles a little too. The drink is finally starting to have effect, maybe.

“She made believe running away once, as a child,” Win says. “Children do, you know. Fred had been out on a case all that week, missing girl, and I think she was hoping he’d give her the same kind of attention. Took half a loaf of bread and some cheese out of the kitchen and went off without a word. We thought she was with friends. Didn't start worrying until she didn't show up for dinner, and then we were all in a panic."

Morse tried to imagine that. Joan, but smaller, striking out on her own. Trying to make a point, or have an adventure, blissfully unaware of what it meant to be in danger. It's easier than he'd like to admit.

"Found her in the park after an hour of looking. She was curled up under a tree, more stubborn than she was cold. I thought she could see then what it did to us."

"She's not a child anymore," he says. It seems an important distinction.

"Do you think she's alright, at least?"

Morse considers her apartment filled with plants, the cigarette between her lips, her bold confidence, the man with the wedding ring at her door. "I hope so.” It's all he can say.

“Why haven’t you tried to look for her?” Win asks then. “You’re a police officer. You could find her, I know it.” There’s something insistent in her face, then, desperate, and Morse feels sick to his stomach. He’s here on false pretenses, after all. What’s a plate of chicken going to do when he could tell her Joan’s address? But he can’t. He made a promise. He can’t.

“She doesn’t want to be found,” he says. And then, “I’m sorry.” It all rings hollow.

“Since when have you been so concerned with what missing people wanted?” she demands. “If this was your girl run off, wouldn’t you do everything?”

Morse can only look away.

They finish their chicken. Win says she’ll put a plate on to warm for Thursday. Morse says he'd better be leaving and Win agrees; it's another sign of the changing times. "Don't tell Fred," she says. "He doesn't like talking about it." Morse promises he won't. It's not his place.

He's halfway out the door, struggling a bit with his coat sleeve, when she says, softly, ”thank you.”

He didn’t do anything, not really. He thought he’d made things worse. But there’s something in her voice that sounds real, familiar even. He responds with a tight smile. “You’ll call me, if you need a ride?”

She nods. He leaves. It’s cold, now, and dark, and Morse shoves his hands deep in his pockets. He’s done what he can. Tomorrow he’ll bring a record and leave it in the front hall, and pretend he doesn’t know that it won’t be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I'd love to know what you thought. 
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores.


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